I hope this is not going to be embarrassing. If so, it is not my
fault. This is history, please remember, not fiction. I wanted--I am
obliged to say it--pyjamas for winter wear. I know all about pyjamas
for summer wear; what I wanted was pyjamas for winter wear, and I
decided that Agnes should make them. For years I have been trying to
get proper pyjamas--by which I mean pyjamas properly made--but the
haberdasher always smiles depreciation and tells me that the goods he
offers me are what are always worn. Quite so; but what I say is that
out of bed and for the purpose of having your photograph taken Trade
pyjamas are all right; but that in bed they commit untold offences. I
enter my bed clothed; I settle down in it half-naked. The jacket has
run up to my arm-pits; my legs are bare to the knee; my arms to the
elbows; the loosely buttoned front is ruckled up into a funnel, down
which, whenever I move, the bedclothes like a bellows draw a chill
blast of air on to that particular part of my chest which is designed
for catching colds. When I turn over in my dreams I wake to find
myself tied as with ropes. Slumber's chains have indeed bound me. I am
a man in the clothing of a nightmare. The cold, cold sheets catch me
in the most ticklesome delicacies of my back and make me jump again.
Enough.
"Well," said Agnes, "if I am going to make your pyjamas you must tell
me exactly what you want."
"My pyjamas," I said, "shall be buttoned round the ankle and capacious
below the waist--there I ask a Turkish touch. The jacket shall be
buttoned at the wrists and baggy at the shoulder; at the chest it
shall strap me across like an R.F.C. tunic, and it shall be securely
clipped to the trousers."
"Why not have it all in one?"
"What!" I cried, "and parade hotel passages in search of the bath
looking like a clown out of a circus? No, thank you."
"You must make me a pattern then," said Agnes, "or I shan't know what
to do."
I can't make patterns, but I can, and I did, make plans of ground and
first-floor levels, a section and back and front elevations, all to a
scale of one inch to the foot exactly. I also made a full-size detail
of a toggle-and-cinch gear linking the upper storey to the lower.
"I think," Agnes said, "you had better come to the shop and choose the
material."
I thought so too. I wanted something gaudy that would make me feel
cheerful when I woke in the morning; but I also had another idea in
my mind. _Mangle-proof buttons_! Have the things been invented yet?
The archbishop who attended to us deprecated the idea of india-rubber
buttons.
"What kind are you now using?" he asked solicitously.
"At present, on No. 2," I said, "I am using splinters of
mother-of-pearl. Last week, with No. 1, I used a steel ring hanging
by its rim to a shred of linen, two safeties, and a hairpin found on
the floor."
I chose a flannel with broad green and violet stripes, and very large
buttons of vitrified brick which I hoped might break the mangle. These
buttons were emerald in colour and gave me a new idea. _Trimmings_.
"I want to look right if the house catches fire," I told Agnes. "Green
sateen collar to match the buttons--"
"And for the wristbands," said Agnes, catching my enthusiasm.
"And for the wristbands," I agreed; "but," I added, "not at the
ankles. That would make the other people in the street expect me to
dance to them, and I don't know how to."
And now the good work is complete. Toggle and cinch perform their
proud functions, and I sleep undisturbed by Arctic nightmares, for I
have substituted green ties for the stoneware buttons which reduced
my vitality by absorbing heat. My only trouble is my increasing
reluctance to rise in the morning. I don't like changing out of my
beautiful things so early in the day. I am beginning to want breakfast
in bed.
* * * * *